Introduction

Release 6.2.1 is now available as an upgrade of 6.1.9 of your software release in support of the MARS Appliance models as identified in Supported Hardware. Registered SMARTnet users can obtain release 6.2.1 from the Cisco support website at the following URL:http://www.cisco.com/go/mars/
Open the page and then click the
Download Software for this Product
link under the Support heading on the right side of the MARS product home page.

Important Upgrade Notes

To ensure that the upgrade from earlier releases is trouble free, this section contains the notes provided in previous releases according the release number. Please refer to the notes that pertain to the release you are upgrading from and any releases following that one.

When downloading software packages from CCO to MARS, ensure that your credentials (username or password) do not include the ampersand (&) character. The credential will be truncated before being passed to the authentication module, which results in an error message about invalid user credentials.

The MARS Appliance performs a file system consistency check (fsck) on all disks when either of the following conditions is met:

– The system has not been rebooted during the past 180 days.

– The system has been rebooted 30 times.

The fsck operation takes a long time to complete, which can result in significant unplanned downtime when rebooting the system after meeting a condition above. For example, a MARS 50 appliance can take up to 90 minutes to perform the operation.

Upgrade to 6.0.2 through 6.2.1

No important notes exist for the 6.0.2 through 6.2.1 upgrades.

Upgrade to 6.0.1

The upgrade process to 6.0.1 differs based on the release you are upgrading from. If you are upgrading a 5.x release, you can upgrade to 6.0.1 if you are running 5.3.6. The upgrade from 5.3.6 to 6.0.1 takes several hours, as it also upgrades the Oracle database running on the appliance. If you are running an earlier 5.x release, you must first upgrade to 5.3.6.

Note When upgrading a “restricted” model of MARS appliance (20R, 100e, or GCm) to MARS Software release 6.0.1, all limits enforced by the restricted model are ignored. The “restricted” models perform as unrestricted models (20, 100, or GC) once upgraded to release 6.0.1.

Upgrade Path Matrix

When upgrading from one software release to another, a prerequisite release is always required. This prerequisite release is the minimum level required to be running on the appliance before you can upgrade to the most recent release. Table 1 identifies the upgrade path that you must follow to reach the minimum level required to upgrade to current release.

Downloading the Upgrade Package from CCO

Upgrade images and supporting software are found on the CCO software download pages dedicated to MARS. You can access these pages at the following URLs, assuming you have a valid CCO account and that you have registered your SMARTnet contract number for your MARS Appliance

And then click the
Download Software for this Product
link under the Support heading on the right side of the MARS product home page.

Result
: The Download Software page loads.

From the Download Software page, select one of the following options:

CS-MARS IPS Signature Updates Archives

CS-MARS IPS Signature Updates

CS-MARS Patches and Utilities (supplementary files)

CS-MARS Recovery Software

CS-MARS Upgrade Packages

Note If you are upgrading from a release earlier than those posted on CCO, please contact Cisco support for information on obtaining the required images. Do not attempt to skip releases along the upgrade path.

Documentation Errata

Important Notes

No important notes exist for the 6.2.1 upgrade.

Caveats

This section describes the open and resolved caveats with respect to this release.

For your convenience in locating caveats in Cisco’s Bug Toolkit, the caveat titles listed in this section are drawn directly from the Bug Toolkit database. These caveat titles are not intended to be read as complete sentences because the title field length is limited. In the caveat titles, some truncation of wording or punctuation may be necessary to provide the most complete and concise description. The only modifications made to these titles are as follows:

Note The Documentation Guide and Cisco.com link to the most recent Cisco Secure MARS publications. The release number for many documents may vary from the current release number.

Obtaining Documentation, Obtaining Support, and Security Guidelines

For information on obtaining documentation, obtaining support, providing documentation feedback, security guidelines, and also recommended aliases and general Cisco documents, see the monthly
What’s New in Cisco Product Documentation
, which also lists all new and revised Cisco technical documentation, at:

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